I would like to take some time to reflect on last week’s article and discuss another element of organisational behaviour; abusive supervision. In my previous article, I mentioned how employees are dissatisfied at work due to factors such as a lack of motivation/job opportunities, boredom and long hours; however: what happens when abusive supervision comes into play?
Before we are able to address this question, we must first begin to understand what the term ‘abusive supervision’ actually means. According to Science Daily, it:
…refers to subordinates' perceptions of supervisors engaging in the sustained hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviours, excluding physical contact.
As mentioned by the psychology research and reference site, iResearch Net, “public derogation, undermining, and explosive outbursts” all fall under this content domain.
Various studies have shown this to negatively affect the well-being, health and work performance of employees. This then begs the question, why do some superiors seem to be so unable to control situations in the workplace in a decent and fair manner that they feel the need to practice abusive supervision? Why do superiors resort to such behaviour? Are they unable to control the workplace environment? Do they need to prove themselves in front of their peers and employees?
I have noticed this behaviour among superiors of all levels within organisations, such as restaurant managers and head chefs. They seem to either be unaware of how their behaviour is negatively affecting others or unable to adequately control their emotions in stressful situations. Looking at the figures, it seems to me that this is affecting employees far more than people may realise. It is therefore imperative that superiors realise the consequences of their actions; if need be we must invest in ample training regarding this matter.
Wu, one of the researchers of the 2017 study ‘Abusive Supervision and Employee Deviance’, stated that abusive supervision will inevitably
cause problems for the managers who engage in abusive supervision and, overall, it will threaten the well-being of the organisation because the employees will engage in organisational deviance, such as arriving to work late or having low productivity.
According to the above study,
abusive supervision was more strongly related to supervisory-focused justice, compared to organisationally focused justice perceptions, and both types of justice perceptions were related to target-similar deviance (deviance toward the supervisor and organisation, respectively).
iResearch Net also states that abusive supervision is common, with:
one is seven employees report[ing] [that] his or her current supervisor is abusive.
They also found that:
approximately 50% of employees can expect to have an abusive supervisor at some point in their working life…
This clearly shows that, as well as employees, customers will also bear the brunt of this negative behaviour. Employees arriving late to work and not being productive will ultimately lead to poorer customer service, and a lower level of guest satisfaction as a result.
The question that I have with regards to all of this is: how have these types of people been able to climb the ranks and reach the position that they are now in with such toxic attitudes that inevitably affects the workplace as a whole? This means that we must not only put the blame on the superiors participating in such behaviour, but also on the Human Resources departments in establishments where this occurs. Abusive supervision is learnt as part of ‘organisational psychology’ for HR professionals; whether they study this concept at university or learn it through training. This seems to go back to what I was saying last week about the organisational structure: if the people in charge are the ones who are uninformed or inexperienced, how can we expect things to improve? Perhaps we can learn from the practices of internal marketing, which states that we should flip the traditional organisational structure. This would mean that general managers will still of course have most of the control, but support their staff, rather than merely ordering them around. The top of this flipped organisational pyramid is the customers, meaning that everything an establishment does is for the customer’s benefit, as opposed to superiors leading with their emotions and satisfying their egos by lashing out instead of addressing the issues at hand.
This may have been the issue all along. Since the aim of the traditional organisational structure is to please the boss, and the flipped structure is about pleasing the guest; it is possible that a mere shift in the way we think about our organisation and the way in which we act will allow us to reach our full potential as an establishment. By focusing solely on the guests and realising how negative workplace practices/behaviour can ultimately have a negative effect on them, it is highly probable that we can create a more positive overall work environment.
We must also not forget that one of the very factors that separates Michelin starred and Rosette establishments from your ordinary diner is the fact that we put our guests first. Given all the findings I have presented within this article, how can we continue to maintain utmost guest satisfaction upon them visiting our establishments if abusive supervision is being practiced? How can we proudly call ourselves fine dining establishments if this is the way we treat our staff, leading them to perform unsatisfactorily as a result? How can we reach our full potential as establishments if our front-line workers are not at their optimum happiness, and therefore unable to work at their optimum level?
I urge superiors to ask themselves these questions, and to be completely honest in their answering. If we are to improve, we must first realise our shortcomings. Without this critical examination of oneself and one’s business, success on all fronts will not be possible.
